CNN.com - WHO: Human flu pandemic inevitable - Nov 7, 2005

CNN.com - WHO: Human flu pandemic inevitable - Nov 7, 2005: "GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- A deadly new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be 'incalculable' unless the world is ready, the chief of the U.N. health agency said Monday."

What we can do about the bird flu now that world health experts call it "inevitable":

1. Send someone back in time to identify and kill Patient Zero. Without fail, it will come to be that this time traveler is Patient Zero, and thus the plague cyclically creates itself as a direct result of our attempt to prevent it.

2. Redefine the concept of "isolationist". End all international flights and hire lots and lots of duck hunters to wipe out migratory flocks of wild birds. Imagine propaganda posters of the dodo and the passenger pigeon with the words "We've done it before...we can do it again!" written on it in big red letters.

3. People who survived the Black Plague did so by going up into the mountains and staying there, killing anyone who approached their little log cabins and such. That's all I'm sayin'.

4. Embed a subsection of our citizens into mine shafts, Doctor Strangelove-style.

5. The people on the International Space Station are just fuckin' fine, thank you very much. Loss of bone density doesn't seem so bad anymore, does it? If Dennis Tito gets another $20 million together, he's going to be OK.

6. Stay away from sick people.

We could also just ignore the problem while our politicians pretend to have a clue what's going on. Once they've shuffled enough paper around, the pandemic is sure to be avoided.

Yeah. Let's do that.